Global trade compliance is one of those business areas where ‘getting it wrong’ is not an option. Every shipment must be screened against sanctioned party lists, and every false positive means lost time, delayed revenue, and frustrated compliance teams.
Recently, we worked with a Global Manufacturing Company struggling with exactly this. Over 95% of their SAP Global Trade Solutions (GTS) blocks were false positives, forcing analysts to manually review hundreds of cases per day. Each check took about 5 minutes, creating a compliance bottleneck that slowed shipments, strained employees, and risked penalties if something slipped through.
The Challenge
- Compliance teams manually reviewed ~300 blocks per day
- 95% were false positives caused by minor variations in names (e.g., “Steven Jones” vs. “Steve J.”)
- Business Analysts had to triangulate data from multiple sources, often relying on intuition rather than clear evidence
- Shipments were delayed impacting revenue
- Fatigue set in, and valuable resources were tied up in repetitive, low-value work
The AI Solution
We co-designed a Sanctioned Party List Screening AI Solution, powered by SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP AI Core, to embed intelligence directly into the GTS workflow.
- NLP-Powered Matching: AI models normalize and understand name variations, nicknames, transliterations, and spelling errors
- Machine Learning Confidence Scoring: Trained on historical compliance decisions, the AI scores match likelihood and auto-clears low-risk cases
- Third-Party Data Enrichment: Pulls in external sources (like D&B) for more robust decision-making
Audit-Ready Outputs with Gen AI: High-risk hits include transparent, evidence-based justifications for compliance officers
The result? A faster, smarter compliance workflow—without changing the core SAP system.
Impact in Practice
In this customer’s environment, the AI solution reduced manual review time by ~85%.
- Before AI: 456 seconds per check → ~22,800 seconds/day across 2 analysts
- After AI: 68 seconds per check → ~3,400 seconds/day
- Net savings: 2,800 analyst hours per year ($196K in productivity gains)
Beyond numbers, the impact also centers around improving employee experience: less fatigue, fewer repetitive tasks, and more confidence in the screening process. Analysts could focus on high-value tasks instead of sifting through noise.
Human-Centered AI in Action
This use case wasn’t just about efficiency. It was about designing AI around the people who use it:
- Business/Compliance Analysts wanted accuracy and speed
- Trade Directors needed auditability and metrics
- Both required trust in the system before delegating decisions
Through co-innovation, we made sure that the AI solution not only fit seamlessly into SAP GTS, but also adapted to evolving sanction lists and user feedback—continuously learning and improving.
Why This Matters
Global trade compliance is just one example of where AI plus SAP yields business value. The same principles—human-centered design, AI, continuous learning—apply across finance, supply chain, HR, and beyond.
Our takeaway: AI becomes transformative when it aligns with both business goals and human needs.
See It in Action
Watch the short demo video by our Principal Designer, Sab Cheung, to illustrate how this AI solution works inside SAP GTS.
AI GTS Sanctioned Party List Demo Video
Let’s Talk
If your organization is exploring AI opportunities with SAP—whether for compliance, supply chain, or finance—we’d love to collaborate. Our team at Mindset specializes in bridging AI ambition and real-world adoption.
Reach out to discuss your AI journey. Let’s co-innovate solutions that deliver measurable impact while putting people at the center.
